Unit VI:

Women and Labour

GE-9 – Women and Politics in India: Concepts and Debates
Aditi Gupta
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
Lakshmibai College
University of Delhi
 Sex Work
Darbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee,
Kolkata (2011) ‘Why the so-called Immoral
Traffic (Preventive) Act of India Should be
Repealed’, in P. Kotiswaran, Sex Work
Criticism of the Immoral
Traffic (Prevention) Act of
India from among the
community of sex workers
Demand for sex The Immoral
workers’ rights Traffic
● There is a definition of a
non-criminal, inter-spousal, (Prevention) Act
Demand to be
marital, non-commercial recognized as service
interpersonal sexual activity as Legal obstacle in the
sector workers. path of recognition
the only acceptable form of
sexual activity
○ Legal-sexual Puritanism
borrowed from the
Anglo-American culture
● Anti-sex-worker +
anti-human-sexuality spirit
Major Arguments

● Provisions to prevent ‘immoral’ ● In all sectors of labour market, some

trafficking imply that some forms of human beings are trafficked, but not all
human trafficking are moral = true of the sex sector, too.

● All forms of trafficking of human

● Conflation of sex workers and beings in all sectors of the economy
trafficked persons in the Act ● Trafficking of humans in the sex sector
being fought through self-regulation

● A specific space and its use for ● In all patriarchal homes, a vast majority
purposes of sexual exploitation/abuse, of women are routinely sexually
defined as brothel exploited/abused

● A specific relation when sexual

● Under patriarchy, in all transactions,
exploitation is for the gain of another
men gain at the expense of women
person is defined as prostitution
Major Arguments

● The anti-sex-worker spirit only helps

● Double conflation of non-marital sexual
line the pockets of the immoral
activity with sex work → criminalized
guardians of the law

● Criminalization forces sex work to ● Sexual health compromised

operate underground → increased ● Increase in unsafe sex practices
dangers for the workers ● Increase in violent sexual incidences

● Sexual exploitation of girls/child brides

● Sex-ratio imbalances
● Reality of the sexual field in India
● Avoidance of sex education → Stunted
needs the recognition of the real
sexual culture
issues ● Reality of trafficking – wageless
slavery
 Unpaid Labour
P Swaminathan (2014) Outside the Realm of Protective
Legislation: The Saga of Unpaid Work in India, in
Women and Law: Critical Feminist Perspective;
P. Swaminathan (2012) ‘Introduction’, in Women and
Work
Four broad concerns
● ‘Social’ + ‘sectoral’ division of labour between
Conceptualizing Work,
01 Mapping Complexities
sexes → continued maintenance of women’s
subordinate position in society

● Limitations of the national data systems →

Imparting Visibility,
02 Interrogating Data Systems
policies, programmes anchored around data →
invisiblizes the economic contribution of women

● Patriarchal structures + capitalist relations of

Forms of Labour, Conditions
03 of Work
production → diffused manner of experience of
oppression over wage earning women workers

● Consequences of time and energy expended in

Critiquing Policies: Implications
04 and Consequences for Work
survival tasks → reproductively hazardous lives
led by most of our rural women
 Division of Labour between the sexes

Social Sectoral
Throughout a given society, Within specific sectors of a
women are held responsible given economy - agricultural
for domestic tasks like or industrial sector, for
cooking, cleaning, raising of instance - a hierarchical
children, whereas men are division is maintained and
exempted from all such perpetuated between men
tasks and women

Hierarchical division Domestic division of

of labour in the ● Work done by women is ● Monopoly of men over labour acts to
household is performed within the confines instruments of technology weaken women’s
perpetuated by the of the ‘home’ → goes unpaid → ● Male jobs treated as skilled jobs position in the
considered unproductive ● Women’s labour as cheap - paid
labour market the ‘hunger wage’
labour market
The practice of particular crafts in
India is customarily caste-linked and
the place of craftsmen and women in
the social hierarchy is codified in the
status of their particular caste.

As the market expanded, while many

crafts in general declined, in those
that persisted, women are engaged to
a greater extent than men.

How women through their

engagement in subsistence activities
lessen the severity of the impact of
macro changes (that otherwise result
in reduced opportunities for
remunerative employment for the
family-household).
Social definition of rural women as
housewives, non-workers, and
dependents

Assumption that their labour is

underutilised

Strategies proposed for solution of

mass poverty = expansion of
small-scale industries, domestic
industries, and the handicrafts
sector where rural women are to
play a central role

Unlimited exploitation of women in

these industries where they produce
goods which are marketed either in
the urban areas or in the
international market
Women in poor rural households are
burdened with significant
responsibilities for providing for the
family → women’s ability
significantly constrained by the
declining resources and means at
their command

State-sponsored schemes which seek

to raise the welfare of poor
households are based on little
knowledge or appreciation either of
the intra-household division of labour
and income between women and
men, or of women’s independent
need for employment or other
income-earning opportunities
Limitations of the National Data Systems
How National Data systems not only understate and underestimate women’s economic contributions, but are not
conceptually and technically equipped to deal with circumstances where more numbers of women and much of
women’s time is taken up by activities that are vital for the survival of the households but ‘unproductive’ as they
do not fit into the standard categories.

03 Inadequacy of current
Inappropriate tools and techniques
definitions of our data to workers
systems
Evolved under the assumption
that the economy and its
workers will progressively
become more formal rather
Inappropriate current
than what has actually 01 02 systems of data
transpired over the years collection
Straight jacketed into simple
dichotomies, such as
formal/informal, paid/unpaid,
and/or employed/unemployed
Can concepts and definitions evolved
from studying male labourers alone
still remain valid when specific
issues emanating from studying
women labourers require to be
factored into the design of the
existing data systems
Interrogating the phenomenon of low
adult women participation in ‘work’
vis-a-vis high incidence of ‘working’
girl children particularly in urban
areas of West Bengal

Study of interstate variations in the

wage rates of urban female workers
shows West Bengal has the lowest →
families find it more convenient to
send the girl children and not the
adult women for work away from
home
Wage Earning Women – Sectoral division of labour by sex

Initial challenge to the Thoroughgoing challenge to

Underlying assumption
assumption the assumption

Sexual division of labour Sexual division of labour Sexual division of labour

in production is rooted in in production is changes over time
natural differences maintained through according to the need to
between women and men patriarchal prejudices + preserve caste and male
cultural/religious factors power
Wage earning allows both empowering
and disempowering situations for
women at a point in time + allows
certain destabilization of patriarchal
categories

Gender inequities not only persist but

also exhibit a measure of resilience

‘Patrifocality’: the particular manner in

which complex linkage between the
hierarchical family structure and male
dominance operate in India to the
disadvantage of women, however
educationally and socially qualified, and
gainfully employed, the latter may be
How the work processes of the beedi
industry (practised in the villages of
southern Tamil Nadu) constructs
homeworkers primarily as housewives

Homework as a practice that allows a

woman to care for children and perform
her household tasks while earning much
needed income

Women put in long hours to fulfill

production targets set by employers
And the industry functions in such a
way that despite working in close
proximity, women have not been able to
come together to bargain for a better
deal for themselves
The Factories Act, 1948 explicitly
prohibits the employment of women
and children specifically in the tanning
part of the leather industry (designated
as ‘hazardous’).

Women and children continue to be

employed in large numbers in the
tanning industry, but women are not
recognized as legitimate workers in the
industry
Implications for the denial:
(a) women alone perform the most
polluting tasks associated with
the tanning part
(b) Technically, they cannot lay
claim to any of the benefits due to
workers covered under the Act
In many rural areas, women work
harder than men →
Disproportionately more human energy
is expended on survival tasks like
fetching water and gathering firewood –
tasks that can be expended by investing
in appropriate technology and
infrastructure
‘The debate on women’s
employment is not only a social
or an economic issue, but an
issue with very deep political
and cultural dimensions’
(Majumdar, 1983)
Structure of the Text:
1. Women Work but How and in What Capacity?
2. Aspects of Ineffectiveness of Protective Labour Legislation
● Mode of Payment
● Conditions of Work
● Health and Safety Aspects of Work
2.1. Denying the Presence of Women Workers and
Devaluing the Work of Women
2.2. Discrimination in Wage Structure and Wage Payment
3. What Do We Do with ‘Unpaid Labour’?